


clearest blue

by freloux



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 20:24:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21087299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freloux/pseuds/freloux





	clearest blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UniverseOnHerShoulders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/gifts).

Clara doesn’t get visitors. There are the missionaries that stop by semi-annually to ask if she’s “heard the good news”. She’s still trying to come up with a clever response to that one. Sometimes she’ll have one of the teachers over for a glass of wine and an awkward laugh. She’s alone but not lonely, not really, so stop asking.

That’s why she doesn’t hear the knock at first. To be fair it’s also quiet and polite so whoever is knocking obviously isn’t sure of themselves. The knocking eventually gets louder but remains polite instead of forceful banging. As Clara makes her way to the door she pictures her mystery visitor squaring their shoulders before trying to make themselves known.

Clara opens the door just as said visitor has raised her hand mid-knock.

“Do I know you?” Clara asks, both her voice and her face gathered in a frown.

“Yes. Well, sort of. I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor replies. “I came by to see if anything had changed.” She ruffles through her hair like she was looking for something.

“The Doctor.” Clara can’t muster up the energy to come up with a clever reply or even turn the statement into a question. So this is what the universe has decided to thrust upon her, after everything that happened? Drop a little blond lady claiming to be the Doctor on her doorstep?

Said blond lady is shuffling impatiently so Clara gestures her to come inside. She takes a careful look both directions before shutting the door. No goons have materialised in her hallway so _that’s_ a good sign at least.

Clara makes tea because it’s an automatic awkward British thing to do. The woman — ok, the Doctor — stands in the middle of Clara’s living room with her hands in the pockets of what are some sort of coveralls. That posture, at least, is familiar: the Doctor that Clara knew had the same gangly impatience.

“You wanted to know if anything had changed,” Clara prompts once she and the Doctor have their tea and sit facing each other on the couch.

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor says. Her voice is softer. It’s not a rough burr. “Because I used to know you. It’s all claptrap up here.” She gestures at her head. “Something about you seems to remain, like a song you can’t get out of your head. Tell me about yourself, Clara.”

No one’s expressed such genuine interest in Clara for a long time so she finds herself opening up immediately. She describes her home, her human life, and the adventures she went on in what now seems like another lifetime. The Doctor studies Clara’s face with open friendliness and even smiles when Clara talks about how there was this nebula — and the train — the clockwork squirrel —

Clara retreats into herself. The Doctor’s smile is just so inviting that it makes her blush. The attention is both flattering and intriguing.

“Are you —?” The Doctor asks before she puts down her mug and cautiously sets a hand on Clara’s thigh.

_Oh._

Clara looks at the rainbow on the Doctor’s tee shirt. “Are you—?”

“Not strictly,” the two women say in unison and then collapse into giggles. Clara half-smiles.

“If I may,” the Doctor says. She leans in and takes Clara’s face in her hands as carefully as she’d held that mug of tea.

Clara opens her eyes wide, taking a heartbeat of a moment before she closes her eyes again and says yes, please, yes you may.

She can’t help but compare. The essence is the same, proud and ready for a fight, lonely and withdrawn but opening herself up just like Clara is. Here the Doctor is more floppy somehow, though, all wrapped up in soft cotton that just feels so cozy to the touch. Underneath are gentle, sloping curves not unlike Clara’s own.

The Doctor holds Clara’s hair not in a rough tug but a grip that is at once both gentle and knowing. She smells like clean laundry and the distant ozone of whatever star cloud this Time Lady must have travelled through to get here. 

Taste. What does she taste like? Nothing really. Well, mint, perhaps, if Clara really thinks about it but she’s not doing much thinking right now, is she? No. She’s focused on the slight wet cling of the Doctor’s lips and the smooth sensation of her tongue in Clara’s mouth. Clara isn’t sure what to do with her hands so she settles for curling them at the Doctor’s shoulders. There’s safety there. That duty of care cloaking both of them. Each kiss makes Clara feel like sparks are going off in her brain. It seems to go on forever: some stretching and bending of time that narrows down into this, the here and now and physical reality of the Doctor on top of her. It’s a lighter weight than before. Comfortable. The Doctor always was good at making time feel like a relative concept that somehow always seems to focus on them.

Clara whines when the Doctor pulls away. It’s such a childish and petulant noise that the two of them laugh.

“That good, huh?” the Doctor asks.

Clara feels shy and awkward so she doesn’t meet the Doctor’s gaze when she nods yes. She missed this. Missed her. Missed the self she is with the Doctor. “And has anything changed now that you know me again?”

The Doctor smiles that smile again, the one that’s soft and inviting — and flirty, too, Clara now realises. “No. Not at all.”


End file.
